Runner's Moon: Jebaral

by Linda Mooney

  They had napped for nearly an hour. Since they both had missed lunch, they had gone to the café for a quick bite before he headed back to the mill.

  When she returned to their table, there was a big smile on her face. “I asked Melanie if they were looking for help here. I told her about working at the diner in Laughlin, and that I was willing to help in the back, if necessary. She said they were always looking for another waitress, and I should call Mrs. Tulle tomorrow morning. She’s the owner.”

  “Hannah, you don’t have to get a job if you don’t want to. Trust me, I can take care of you.”

  “I know that, but I don’t want to sit at home twiddling my thumbs and watching soap operas like Mrs. Newburg. I’ve worked at all kinds of jobs since I was twelve. I’d get bored out of my skull if I didn’t have something to do. Besides, I like waitressing. You get to meet all sorts of interesting people that way.” She added a wink to her last statement, causing Jeb to chuckle.

  He paid their tab and followed Hannah outside to where she was standing on the sidewalk in front of the truck.

  “Jeb?”

  “What?”

  “It makes sense now.”

  “What makes sense?” He unlocked the passenger door and opened it for her.

  “Why you go running at night.”

  He closed her door and walked around to climb in the driver’s side. “Go on. I’m listening.”

  “You said your world was an agricultural planet, and that your people grew plants and trees and stuff, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Where did you work before you came to Laughlin?”

  “Corinth Point.”

  Nodding, Hannah looked pleased with herself. “Figures. This northeast section of the state is one giant forest. It reminds you of home.”

  He flashed her a smile but made no reply and backed out of the parking spot.

  She stared at his profile as he drove her back to the motel. “That’s why you’re green, too. It’s natural camouflage. It allows you to blend in with your surroundings.”

  “Why are we discussing my coloration instead of our wedding?”

  “Give me some time. I need to decide what I want. It’s not like we’re in any kind of hurry … are we?” She turned wide, questioning eyes at him.

  Again he didn’t answer her, but he could tell she was busy figuring out what she wanted to do. As an added incentive, he repeated what he’d told her earlier. “Don’t worry about cost, Hannah. It’s going to be your only wedding. And mine.” He grinned.

  “Can I ask how we’re going to pay for it?” There it was again, that apple scent of her concern.

  “I have some money in the bank.”

  The apple aroma grew more distinct. “Would you get upset if I asked how much money?”

  Jeb sighed. It would take some time before she could approach him without flinching. Or expecting a caustic comment or the back side of a hand. Helping her overcome years of domestic violence was not going to be a problem. It was that huge scar on her psyche she would never lose that would forever haunt him.

  “Umm. Hold on. Let me find out.”

  He made a sudden turn into the parking lot of a car parts dealership. Swinging around, he drove back the two blocks to the bank and pulled up next to the ATM machine. She watched as he removed a bank card from his wallet and stuck it in, keying the four digit pin number.

  “My code to everything I use is ten twenty-two. Remember that,” he told her as he punched the button to request a balance.

  Hannah had recognized the familiar blue and green logo on the card. “You use First United States?”

  “It’s where my accounts are, yeah.”

  “Why ten twenty-two?”

  “It’s the date we landed,” he replied and handed her the slip of paper.

  The numbers didn’t register at first. She had to say the amount out loud before her brain would register what she was seeing. “Sixty-four thousand, two hundred eighteen dollars and eleven cents.” She nearly gasped. “Sixty-four thousand?”

  “I’ve been working for nearly five years while staying at low-cost motels. I didn’t need much in the way of material possessions. A new shirt or pair of jeans every now and then. I paid cash for this truck. I have the insurance set up as an automatic payment through the bank.” He pulled back out onto the main road.

  “Sixty-four thousand dollars?”

  “I know. I need to transfer some of that over into CDs. Haven’t gotten around to it.” He glanced over to where she was still staring at the bank slip. “That’s what’s in the checking account.”

  She blinked. “Good Lord, Jeb! How many accounts do you have?”

  “Six, I think. A couple of savings account and some certificates.” He flashed her a smile. “Simolif gets a call every so often from Viharrud. He invests for several of us. Every so often I send him a thousand, and a few months later Simolif lets me know he’s holding a check for me.” Giving her a quick glance, he added, “We know the importance of money on this world. We know it can buy us security and help when and if we need it. That’s why at least a dozen of us work at building up our money. We aren’t thinking of it as investments for the future like your race does, Hannah. It’s for our protection today.”

  “My people would collect guns and weapons. You collect money.” Hannah slowly shook her head. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much money at one time in my life.”

  “It’s yours.”

  “Huh? What? Mine? You’re joking, right?”

  “It’s all material, t’korra. When you’ve been enslaved for over half your life, you quickly learn what’s important. I want our wedding to be everything you’ve always wanted. Can you plan one for that amount? Or do you think I’ll need to cash in one of the CDs?”

  A frown suddenly darkened his face as they pulled into the motel parking lot. Hannah glanced up to see why he had suddenly stopped talking and spotted Mrs. Newburg standing out in front of the office. She was flagging them down and looking very perturbed about something.

  And it didn’t look like good news.

  Chapter 21

  Warning

  “A man who said he was your brother called.” Mrs. Newburg hurried over to the truck to tell them before they could get out of the vehicle. “You got a brother named Simon?”

  Jeb gave a quick nod. “Did he say why he was calling?”

  “Yeah. He wants you to call him right back. Said it’s an emergency. He’s waiting for you. Said it had something to do with aura.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Newburg.” Jeb pivoted and ran for the pay phone with Hannah close behind.

  “Arra? They’re those people who captured you, aren’t they?” she asked him as she watched him punch a series of numbers into the phone.

  The burnt smell of fear drifted over to him. Reaching out, he gave her shoulder a squeeze but didn’t answer. His own stomach knotted while he waited for Simon to answer.

  “Jeb?”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked tersely.

  “Arra. They know we’re here. I got word less than half an hour ago they got Dorrsus,” Simolif said.

  “Is it a transport, or the mother ship, or just a scout?”

  “I don’t know,” Simon admitted. “It was Prithoven who called me. Dorrsus didn’t get to change before daylight—”

  “So he was still Ruinos when they found him,” Jeb concluded. “Where were they?”

  “Further west. In New Mexico.” There was a pause over the line, then Simon commented, “We should be rejoicing, little brother. You’ve found your blood mate.”

  Already Jeb could hear defeat coloring his older sibling’s voice. “Now is not the time to give up hope, Simolif. They may know we’ve landed here but they don’t know where we all are. As long as we take greater care at night—”

  “I’m coming to Tumbril Harbor.”

  Jeb remained stunned for all of three seconds. “No. If we gather, it’ll only make it easier for them to fin
d us.”

  Simon refused to listen. “You have a life partner to protect now. She is my family, too. And that makes her my responsibility as well. You know that. You would do the same if I was the one who had been blessed. Besides, it’s only right she gets to see she made the wrong choice,” he teased.

  The small injection of humor managed to ease the tenseness of the situation for a moment. If truth be told, Jeb was relieved Simon had suggested they join forces. It had been nearly two years since they last saw each other. “When are you leaving?”

  “Soon. Today. I should be in your neck of the woods by late tonight if I break a few speed limits.”

  “Take care, Simolif.”

  “Don’t worry. What room are you in?”

  “Eleven.”

  “See you soon. Bor thirn.”

  “Dia thirn.” Hanging up the receiver, Jeb gave Hannah a small smile.

  “He’s coming down here?” Jeb figured she had guessed this from what she had heard of his end of the conversation.

  “Yeah. The Arra got one of us in New Mexico. Simon will be here by tonight.”

  “Why? Wouldn’t it be easier to elude the Arra if you remained separated?”

  “Yes, but there’s a more important reason why he’s coming,” Jeb replied. “Ruinos instinct is to protect family above all. You’re part of me and our family. A very important part. He’s coming to help me protect you.”

  Her eyes studied him intently. She smelled of growing fear. “Am I in danger?”

  “We hope not, but we can’t take that chance.”

  “Do you think the Arra might start taking people from earth?”

  “I honestly can’t answer that,” he admitted. “But I cannot see why they would. You’re not a strong species. Don’t get peeved at me, Hannah. It’s the truth. Your outer skin is too fragile. There’s no way your species would survive the atmospheres and different grades of gravity on the worlds and moons I’ve seen if you didn’t have special equipment. There are many planets where the Arra have chosen not to handle the dominant species. Especially those which would be more trouble to keep alive than they’re worth.”

  “Well, if we’re not worth the effort, why would they be interested in me?” she asked. A startled look suddenly overcame her when the answer slammed into her at almost the same time.

  Jeb looked at her tenderly. “Yes. Repopulation. The Arra have been trying to keep our race from dying out for years. If you manage to give birth to our child, t’korra, that would make any female on this world possible mates to all the Ruinos males left alive. What you and I have done has never before been achieved in the history of my kind.”

  “So you want me because I might become an incubator for your race?” she asked with a touch of bitterness. It wasn’t the truth, and he understood that. Still, it didn’t stop her from asking even though she knew he had risked everything for her. And the longer she was with him, the more she felt comfortable enough to challenge him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

  “I know you didn’t. You’re just as worried as I am. You know I didn’t choose you simply to become an incubator. There’s every likelihood you’ll never be able to have our child. But in the end, that’s not what matters most to me. Like I told you earlier, I never expected to find a life partner on this world. The fact I have is nothing short of a miracle.”

  Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly as she mulled over this new development. “So what do we do now? New Mexico’s over a thousand miles away.”

  “We don’t know if the Arra are here in a transport, mother, or a scout ship.”

  “What difference does that make? Or does it?”

  “It makes a lot of difference. If they’re in a transport, all they have to do is set their tracking monitors and wait for night to fall. Then when the monitors locate us, they can swoop down to gather us up. But if they’re in a scout, they’d have to report back to a bigger ship first. Scout ships only have a two-man complement. They don’t have room to take any extra cargo aboard.” Taking her hand, he gave it a squeeze. He noticed how she stared down at it. “The Arra can’t track us when we’ve shapeshifted. We have to be in our real forms for them to locate us.”

  “But you can’t stay in your human disguise all the time, can you?”

  “No. We have to let our true selves come forth every cycle. Allow our skin to breathe. Even if I went to sleep as a human, at some point during the night my body would revert back to its normal form.”

  “You said the sun locks you into your shape during the day. But the moon reflects the sun’s rays—”

  He saw where she was leading with her question. “It reflects. By then the sun’s rays are too weak to affect us.”

  “Even with a full moon like it’ll be tonight?”

  “Has to be direct sunlight. The Arra know this, so they usually don’t try to track us until nightfall. Dorrsus took the risk of remaining Ruinos during the day … or maybe he didn’t have the choice. Either way, we’ll never know how the Arra found him. But now they know we’ve landed here, they’ll be out every night until they can account for every one of us.”

  Reaching out with his free hand, he tucked a loose lock of honey-colored hair behind her ear. “I have no idea if you will show up on their screen, but I can’t take that chance.”

  She gave him a questioning look. “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe it would be better for you if—”

  “Oh, no, no, no! Don’t you dare suggest leaving me!” Hannah angrily argued and gave him a little shove in the chest with her free hand.

  “I’m not leaving you, Hannah. I could never leave you, even if it means saving my own skin. No. What I’m talking about is taking you where the population is denser. That’s why Simolif chooses to stay in bigger cities. He thinks it improves his chances against being discovered.”

  “And you chose to remain in little one-horse burgs like Tumbril Harbor because you think a small town is the better choice?”

  Jeb grinned. “He and I have argued about our choices for years. I think the farther apart we remain, the harder it will be for them to find us. The only thing we’ve agreed on so far is that by gathering, we’re almost guaranteeing the Arra will locate us.”

  “Then it’s dangerous for Simon to meet up with us, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. But he feels he has to.”

  “To protect me? Dammit, Jeb, how do you think that makes me feel?” Anger and hurt rolled off her skin. Jeb flinched at the scent. “How am I going to be able to live with myself if the Arra find and capture you, or the both of you, because of me?”

  “Don’t worry, t’korra. If they find me, they still won’t be able to separate us.”

  “Oh, yeah? What makes you so sure?” She sniffed against the tears that threatened to fall.

  This time he drew her into his embrace and rested his cheek against her warm hair. “The Arra know a bonded pair cannot be separated. It would kill both of us.”

  Hannah drew back slightly to look up at him. “It would? For real?”

  “Yes, t’korra.”

  She stared up at him a moment longer, then cuddled back against his chest. “Good. Because I don’t know if I could survive without you now.”

  “Should we pack and head for the big city?”

  “No. I don’t think it would make a difference. What we need to do is prepare in case they do show up here.”

  “And how do you propose we do that?” he asked curiously.

  “Well … seeing as how you got the money, I say let’s go buy me a gun. That should be a good start.”

  “A gun?”

  “Yeah. A shotgun for starters. Something with a little kick to it. And then I want you to tell me everything you know about the Arra so I’ll know what I’m facing if and when they show up.”

  “Hannah, are you sure about this?”

  “Hell, yeah. It’s about time I showed you what the female of my species can do beside being baby makers. It’s been a while s
ince I’ve fired off a few rounds, but I think I can pick it back up pretty quickly.”

  He could feel her arms snake around his waist. Her hands dipped provocatively inside the waistband of his jeans until they found his butt cheeks and lightly ran her fingernails over their surface. “What are you doing, woman?”

  “It’s not what I’m doing, but what I hope to be doing.” She gave him a heated glance that immediately had his blood come to a rolling boil. “Do you really have to go back to the mill this afternoon? Or can we try blowing your theory out of the water again?”

  “My theory?”

  “That you can’t make love to me while in your human form.”

  “You liked that, huh?” He grinned down at her. “Better than when I am Ruinos?”

  Biting her lower lip, she appeared to be debating with herself. “I don’t know. I’m undecided at this point. Guess we’re going to have to do it a few more times both ways before I can come to any decision.” She gave his rump another scrape with her nails. The muscles tensed at her touch. His hips bucked slightly, and a nice hardness bloomed in the front of his jeans.

  “Hannah,” he began to moan softly, rubbing himself into her belly.

  “Shh. It’s still daylight, which means you won’t shift. And we’re already here at the motel.”

  “I thought you said you wanted to buy a gun.”

  “After you screw my brains out,” she whispered huskily. “Well?”

  As if he had any choice in the matter.

  Chapter 22

  Detected

  The full moon rose like an enormous orange chrysanthemum in the eastern sky. Hannah watched the huge orb ascend above the treetops as dusk deepened into twilight. Already the stars had begun peeping between the leaves.

  After another quick but lusty session of lovemaking, they had gone to the courthouse so Hannah could finish filling out and signing the restraining order against Carl. Afterwards they went down to the sporting goods store on the square to purchase a rifle. She’d found a nice pump action she wanted, but it would take five days for her background check to clear before she could take it home. Both she and Jeb agreed it may be too late by then, but they had no other choice.